But while the small, lucid portion of my mind considered these things, the larger portion simply suggested, Take it all.

I took one more mouthful of that perfect blood and commanded my body to stop.  That was seven, wasn’t it?  I wasn’t sure. It could be six, or eight … or ten.  I found myself swallowing another mouthful while I was trying to figure it out.  No.  Stop it.  Stop now.  Seven mouthfuls, I’d promised myself, no more, no more than seven, a conservative amount.  It was impossible to stop, and my lips quivered over her broken flesh … but stop I did.  My body begged me for more, and my brain reasoned that one more swallow wouldn’t hurt anyone; but I wouldn’t.

I held my mouth over the wound and waited for it to repair itself, which it would do quickly.  Rapid healing was another property of our venom; the healing made certain my quarry couldn’t waste her essence by bleeding to death if my attention was diverted elsewhere temporarily.  I felt the blood vessels mending under my tongue; and the river of blood that had flooded my parched mouth became a rivulet, then a trickle … then it stopped altogether. 

It was painful, the most painful thing imaginable, not tasting her any longer; and I nearly wept with rage and anguish.  It was all I could do not to open the wound afresh and start again, taking what I so desperately wanted. 

My breath came in frenzied gasps as I kissed a bloody mess around the wound and then licked it clean, like a madman unable to leave the thing that had made him so.

But then I felt Bella’s head loll backward into the hand that held her neck.  My head snapped up, all of my unnatural instincts vanishing for the moment.  She moaned and her eyes rolled back under heavy lids. I quickly lowered her to the pillow.  Her legs slipped lifelessly from my waist.

“Bella?” I whispered, terrified.  “Bella?”

She moaned again, her eyes closed.

“Bella, answer me!” 

Panicked, I took a breath to call for Carlisle; but then she spoke.

“What?”  She sounded far too normal for what I’d just done to her, almost as if she were talking in her sleep again.